Of course the monster now, promoted to demon, would make me fight Mingten again, that's not even a surprise. Now, asking us for a report on our performance is quite surprising.
"Baha is learning quickly, although he still makes some basic mistakes he can compensate with quick thinking and unpredictable tactics." Mingten speaks while lying on the ground to catch her breath after the training battle.
"Cool, but you mainly used the saber because the idea of this training is for you two to get used to fighting with weapons." The promoted demon, clearly Mingten's habits are affecting me, speaks as if everything is normal.
Just to remind you, he only stopped the fight, at least I think it was Kaz who stopped us, when I blocked a saber coming for my neck. This is not normal.
"So tell me about what each of you thought of the weapons and how your ardeversary handled it." Kaz once again gives orders instead of questions.
"Baha only used the shield effectively once. Maybe twice?" Mingten speaks while still lying on the floor.
"What do you mean, maybe two?" I ask before Kaz answers? No, not really since he never gives a direct answer.
"The only time you used the shield for anything decent was when you punched Mingten." Kaz who is the only one still standing out of the three participants in this conversation, I sat down a long time ago, explains.
Obviously he doesn't explain everything at once, again.
"Maybe two?" Stretching on the floor, I ask about the second part of this analysis, which use me as the object of study.
"When you threw the burning shield towards her, but you can't say that abandoning your weapon even more so the one that gives you the greatest defense is a good idea in most cases." Kaz says looking at me, slightly displeased, not irritated, just displeased.
"Most of the time it's not always." I respond to the devil monster, which makes me question my sanity for two seconds.
Whatever, I'm practically dead in this mess anyway.
"When majority can be expressed mathematically as ninety-nine percent, the scenarios that occur in the remaining one percent can be neglected, in a way, not the other way around." Kaz speaks with the same discontent as before. "However, I won't say it was completely wrong, just risky and unnecessary."
"Now what did you think about facing Mingten?" Kaz immediately asks for my opinion, he doesn't even gave me the time to savor the fact that so far neither he nor Mingten have thrown gratuitous insults at me.
"Strange." Well, I begin my report, if you can call it one, I describe my impression after our little confrontation. "She seemed to be avoiding using strong attacks, she had a lot of attacks that seemed strong, but she always switched to more subtle tactics at the last moment."
"Good." Kaz speaks with a smile on his face, a reasonably normal smile for the devil monster.
Which makes a shiver run down my spine and every hair on my body stands on end.
Apparently different from my mind, my instincts still care about surviving.
************
After leaving the Flame Envoy's office, no, it would be the city lord's office in that case, I walk around the city with idle thoughts.
With a little attention to the edges that people ignore, where the riffraff and outcasts of society gather, or those who don't want to be seen, similar to my old self.
Just similar, I would never get as low as these rats.
With dark joy I wonder if people have always avoided these places and that's why the filth of society congregates in them? Or could it be the opposite, dirt has started to occupy these places and that's why people avoid them?
Well, it doesn't really matter.
What matters is that the cult does not ignore this dirt, even if it is for their own benefit, at least we give them some tangible hope.
We give food and clothes in exchange for services, sometimes we also do this without asking for anything in return and so little by little they create admiration and adoration for the cult, a form of recruitment that doesn't hurt anyone and is mutually beneficial.
There are skeptics and opportunists of course, but as these will never be fully loyal to the Gray Flame, we make them dependent, stimulating incense, drugs that cause euphoria and a small sample of the Flame's power, the weakest give in in a few days to the strong in a week and a half, all with the same destination.
Slaves of their own free will except in name.
As the addiction intensifies by using them for more intense missions and subjecting them to increasingly unpleasant experiences, until the only moment of rest for their minds is when they indulge in the drugs we give them. Of course, no one lasts long in this cycle.
The last ones who were "recruited" in this way should last even less time as they will be offered to the Pantheon as part of the terms of the alliance, they will probably end up as demon food.
There is also the fact that Kaz caused a scene at one of the recruitment points which made the population pay attention to some of these invisible corners which makes our operations a little more difficult.
I stop walking in front of the alley where Kaz and the two children killed some of the cult members.
Time to work.
***********
Baha's succinct analysis is mostly correct if he had a little more experience maybe he could deduce the reason behind Mingten's strange choices in the middle of training.
Most of it came from the range discrepancy between a sword and a two-handed saber. As a result, it goes too far into the opponent's reach. There is also the difference in weight of the two weapons to consider.
These two factors made her decision-making infinitesimally slower and created the strange scene of a novice Synchroner in the first stage being tied with a relatively more experienced second-stage Synchroner.
"You have half an hour to rest and recover your Ki, after that you will battle again."
I declare indifferent to the looks that mix indifference, anger, fear, resignation and exhaustion.
How expressive.
Or am I the one who is inexpressive?
Whatever.
Soon half an hour passes and it's time for Baha to choose the second combination of weapons to test, this time it's the tonfas.
He spent half the previous fight trying to control the distance and now he's going to melee?
If there is some crazy tactic behind this, it could be interesting, but he probably did it without thinking.
"Start!" And once again the two come face to face in the improvised ring.
The two spend about half a minute probing each other and once again Mingten is the one to go on the offensive first.
Baha is still very hesitant to break his own defense, at least until he despairs and turns the defense into a missile.
Leaving aside Baha's strange notions of self-defense, as soon as the two clash weapons for the first time Talavar approaches and watches the fight at my side.
Sitting on the floor as soon as he greets me, of course.
"Shouldn't you be guarding the tower?" I ask without taking my eyes off the brats.
"I am, my senses reach the Tower and the surrounding area even from here." He responds, with an unfamiliar facial expression, I'm not looking at him after all.
But from the tone of his voice he's probably smiling.
"Besides there's a scary monster around the Tower now so nothing smart will come near here." Talavar speaks, stretching on the floor.
Sloppy.
Sloppy and cunning.
While I reevaluate my opinion about Talavar, the brats put themselves at a distance again after trying some attacks close to each other, but neither of them wants to invest too much in the attack and leave themselves open for a fierce counter attack.
I click my tongue reflexively.
What a frustrating sight, caution is good and hesitation is a failure.
"You're from Wudang, right?" Taking advantage of the brats' brief break, I ask the slob.
"Has Baha commented on this?" Asks the sloppy one.
"No, your sword and techniques are similar to those of Wudang's disciples." At least based on them, there are some personal changes to his techniques.
"What an observer." The slob speaks in slight surprise. "Yes, I am an exile from Wudang. And since you expected this and just wanted confirmation, what is the question you really want to ask?" As I said before: cunning.
"In the time you lived in 'Nine Skies', did you ever hear about a doctrine or martial art being called 'Buddhist'?" I ask the slob, although the most likely answer is a simple: no.
After all, none of the Thirty-three worlds practices Buddhism.
-----------
In the center of the southern continent of Gaia, which is also the south pole of the planet, there is a lake of black waters, lustrous like metal and viscous like oil, the lake itself can be considered massive with a hundred and fifty kilometers in radius in an almost perfect elipse and of unknown depth since not even the gods dare to dive into these waters.
Or none of them came back alive from them.
On the shores of the lake was the corpse of a colossal serpent, well, something whose closest description is a sea serpent.
The serpent was large enough to circle the lake of dark waters three times, its scales were broken or fallen off, revealing open wounds, from which oozed black blood, extremely similar to the water running through the lake, and pieces of flesh and muscles were torn away to reveal the bones and organs of the serpent.
The colossal size was not the only strangeness of the serpent. Below its jaw, a multitude of octopus tentacles extended like a long and repulsive beard, On the creature's chin was a vertical eye, with sclera black as night, completely open.
In the upper part of the serpent's head you could see a multitude of eyes, from the eyes on the right side to all the black sclera, black veins like ebony jumped out over the snake's scaled skin and extended across its head towards the eyes on the left side, which have lighter sclerae as some type of infection.
Although many of the eyes were crushed, cut or burned, it was possible to see that there must have been two larger eyes, one on each side of the snake's head.
It should, because on the right side there was just a gigantic cavity.
"Well that's unexpected." Said a man in a white robe covered in a pattern of gray flames and blue embroidery in the center of the flames, his face hidden by the shadow of the mandarin hat. "This better have nothing to do with Uragi's latest expedition or the animals of the Pantheon might cut off their alliance with us."
The stranger speaks apparently to himself, causing one of the three rings he wears to glow for a measly instant.